Lburou - I hadn't thought about adding any thermal breaks to my entry. I was just going to stop the inner hearth bricks at the outer edge of my entry and then finish my landing with red bullnose bricks. What do you recommend?

Gianni - Yes, I am going to carry the hemisphere shape of the inner arch to my outer arch. And I'll be leaving a reveal at the inner arch for my door, as recommended here at the FB Forum. But for my outer arch, I'm leaning towards tapering my bricks and having straight mortar lines vs. setting straight bricks and having "v" mortar lines like my inner arch. No reason for the change, just want to try it out. Or will it look "weird" if I change the look of my outer arch from the inner arch?

It won't look weird at all. Remember, if the reveal is 1" wide, that is all you will see: 1" of V. If you taper the entryway and outer arch bricks, first of all it shouldn't take that long to do, and second, you just added another skill/design element to your build.

Lburou - I hadn't thought about adding any thermal breaks to my entry. I was just going to stop the inner hearth bricks at the outer edge of my entry and then finish my landing with red bullnose bricks. What do you recommend?

Gianni - Yes, I am going to carry the hemisphere shape of the inner arch to my outer arch. And I'll be leaving a reveal at the inner arch for my door, as recommended here at the FB Forum. But for my outer arch, I'm leaning towards tapering my bricks and having straight mortar lines vs. setting straight bricks and having "v" mortar lines like my inner arch. No reason for the change, just want to try it out. Or will it look "weird" if I change the look of my outer arch from the inner arch?

After a short hiatus, I am back on the build! Today I completed my outer/entry arch! It took me a while to measure and cut all the bricks, but I made sure I had all the measurements right before I started mortaring. Once everything was cut to specs, I built it all in about 1.5 hours.

I left a 1.5" reveal at the inner arch for my door. I went for 1.5" because my inner arch bricks are tapered and I wanted a little more reveal for my door.

My entry ended up being 12" deep. I considered a 15" entry, but decided on 12". I just need to finish up my flue base on top of the outer arch, and I'll be ready for my flue. I'll be using a clay flue liner, 8x13 oval, custom cut.

I do actually have pics to post. I've been trying to add them to the "manage attachments" window, but it's taking FOREVER to upload the pics! I don't know what's going on. I'm going to add a few pics to the daily pics section to see if that makes it easier for the FB website to accept my pics.

Yes, I've been reducing the size of my pics to about 300-350 KB. I've just uploaded some pics - see above. More pics to come.

My outer arch is not the most perfect arch out there, but it will do. I will be adding another decorative arch in front of this arch, so I'm not too worried about it not being the best job out there. The inner seams (where everybody will be able to see) will be nice and tight. It works for me!

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